


A Terrible Cook

by LePetitChouNerd



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Cooking, F/M, Filipino culture, Fluff, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Relationship Issues, a tiny bit of angst, just a tiny bit, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 21:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11170224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LePetitChouNerd/pseuds/LePetitChouNerd
Summary: "Sarianna understood more than anyone that the perfect meal was a sum greater than its carefully laid out parts. It was her mother who taught her this guarded secret, one which would accompany every recipe laid down in memory."A short on the writing prompt "You're a terrible cook!" for my OC Sarianna Ryder and Reyes Vidal.





	A Terrible Cook

Sarianna understood more than anyone that the perfect meal was a sum greater than its carefully laid out parts. It was her mother who taught her this guarded secret, one which would accompany every recipe laid down in memory.

Three tablespoons oil

A cup of cooked pulled chicken

Four teaspoons of minced ginger

Julienned chili peppers

Carrots

Garlic

Onions

Mushrooms

Shrimp 

Patis

Kalamansi

Chinese wheat noodles

Cantonese style

Pancit Canton

Her hands stirred the boiling pot of noodles, wondering as they simmered to softened tendrils whether she had finally achieved the right texture. Next to the boiling pot, her sauteeing skillet of spices hissed against the cackle of heated oil. The air seemed to thicken with grease. Mechanically, she added the next set of ingredients. Substitutes for the things only a set of islands, lost in one of the spires of the Milky Way, could offer. What she had before her wasn’t quite what she needed, but what else was a girl to do?

_Pathfinder, I detect the garlic has exceeded the acceptable temperature range._

SAM was doing his best to help. And she listened, immediately lowering the heat by the dial of the Tempest’s archaic little stove.

In a way, their overly cautious and fledgling method of preparing the meal wasn’t so different from back then. Her mother hovering over their much larger kitchen island, Sara would watch attentively, ears perked up and a grin tugging at her lips, as she watched her mother work wonders with a knife. She remembered the ways in which Ellen cooked, as if it was a dance. Precise, fluid, and miraculously instinctive. She never consulted a recipe book. She didn’t have an AI dictate the steps. She was a seasoned cook and a dutiful wife. Only she made the best, most perfect pancit canton for when Alec came home. And Sara made sure to watch, in case it would one day be _her_ turn to offer such a meal for someone she loved. 

Years later, as young as twenty-two, the time came. Reyes was set to meet her aboard the Tempest within the hour, and she wasn’t even dressed. A frown weighed heavily on her brow with the soundless ticking of her nerves. If her mother had made the meal, she would have already been done. And her father, who no doubt would come unsuspecting of the savory aroma filling his lungs, would consume it without a word. Pancit was his favorite. Not entirely fancy, but it was a household staple, and it always reminded him of a different sort of home. One of seas and sand and an ocean breeze. Sara wondered if her lover would come in with the same unexpected surprise and the same wordless gratitude.

_Sara, the noodles are ready._

She nodded her head, as if SAM had kept vigil over her efforts. Biting her lip as if for luck, she carried the pot over and drained the noodles of all water. The noodles landed with a hot splash against the colander.

_Now you may join the ingredients in the main po._

Obeying, the noodles joined the wok. One by one, she sprinkled spice, herb, and garnish. The fire hissed beneath the metal. Her hands stirred tenderly at the contents, hoping a careful reading of the recipe was enough and that a chemical analysis of viable substitutes within Kadara could achieve that impossible sort of authenticity. And if it wasn’t? 

_You are nervous._

She laughed at the obvious. “A little.”

 _I believe the care with which we prepared the meal is adequate._  

Sara didn’t know how to say that “adequate” wasn’t what she wanted.

_Are you concerned Mr. Vidal will be displeased?_

“I don’t think displeasing him is what I’m afraid of,” she said, no longer fazed by SAM’s formality with Reyes. She absentmindedly stirred the pot. The ingredients folded within the waves of noodles. Previous hints of onion and garlic made way for searing ginger and the fleeting fragrance of Kalamansi.

_What is there to fear?_

“I don’t know,” she answered with a shrug. “I just don’t think I’m doing this right.”

For a while, nothing save the sizzle of the wok filled their time. She waited for the noodles to brown, for the vegetables to soften, and for the meat to reach a more desirable golden hue. It was the first time Sarianna was about to finish preparing a Filipino dish, and it was the first time she ever deliberately brought it out - cooked it, styled it, and tendered it for someone else completely.

 _When your mother’s disease progressed,_ SAM began seemingly on a tangent _, he used to mention missing this meal._  

“Did he now?” Sara wanted to laugh at the thought. Somehow, she couldn’t quite picture Alec admitting something so sentimental and guarded, even to an AI implant lodged inextricably from his nervous system. 

_Indeed. He seemed to have missed it most when Ellen was confined to the hospital._

“Oh? But he didn’t miss mom?” She was trying to joke, but the opportunity instead led to some harrowing irony she hadn’t quite parsed out. She stirred the pot further, hoping the ingredients were thoroughly mixed. “To be honest, the way she made it… I miss it too.”

 _You have it before you, Sara_ , SAM remarked blithely. _I am sure Mr. Vidal will appreciate the meal, if not the gesture._

* * *

 She washed her hair twice to make sure the smell of oil and food rinsed out with the shampoo. Standing before the mirror in the showers, she picked at a pimple that had insolently grown by her nose. It was embarrassing to say the least.

“We can cover that up,” Suvi chimed in from behind. She too had been drying her hair with her towel, having just finished with the showers. “I have a concealer somewhere! Let me just-”

Sara poked at the red bump, glistening as it did with the oils of human skin. She scrutinized it, both annoyed and curious at its sudden appearance. 

“Stress can do that,” Suvi remarked as she brushed shoulders with Sara next to the mirror. Her finger was already dabbed with the almost seamless tawny hue of her concealer cream (one that stood out on the scientist’s more pinkish skin) before dabbing a bit on the offending blemish. “You know, it’s cute Ryder.” 

“What is?”

She laughed at the rather innocent question, as if Sara had been an unwitting child stumbling into the throes of romance.

“That you’re so nervous! First date and all.” Suvi stopped short of cooing. Pleased with the touch-up, she drew out a sigh, somewhat wistful, as she stood adjacent to Sara. 

“It’s not our first date,” she insisted with a slight frown.

“Oh I know!” Suvi pressed harder with her fore finger on the pimple as she tried to smudge the cream until it was more seamless. “I just mean a sit-down one. No frills, no thrills. Just dinner and good conversation.” As Suvi finished her ministrations, Sara bit her lip at the thought. _Dinner. Conversation. No frills. No thrills._ There was something strange about it, as if the mere utterance of the fact that Sara and Reyes never really had a quiet moment to themselves was a reality they hadn’t really faced, much less talked about. 

The two women stared before the mirror. Sara’s reflection was front and center. Unfazed and almost unchanging next to the smiling figure. “Lovely,” Suvi sighed. The last time Sara could recall such a moment - where a woman doted on her, held her by the shoulders, and relaxed her in admiration of her own reflection - was when her mother helped her get dressed for a school dance. Ellen used the same word, then. _Lovely._

* * *

 Reyes was running late. He called to let her know as much. Sara looked at the digital clock over her omnitool’s interface screen. 20:13. Thirteen minutes late wasn’t so bad, she guessed. 

“I’m on my way now. I just got held up!” The rush in his voice didn’t do much to conceal whatever frustration carried through the channel.

She sighed. Audibly so. “Okay.”

The sound of shuffling on the other end didn’t do much to comfort her. “Don’t be like that,” he said, sounding slighted by Sara’s disappointment. “I wasn’t sitting on my ass all day. I had-” 

“Work to do,” she cut in. “I know.”

“I’m on the lift right now.” 

“Okay.”

* * *

 Sara planned it all from the day they agreed on the date. A makeshift table, covered with cloth by candlelight and wine to top it off. They had the entirety of Heleus for a view. Waves of stardust spiraled in streaks aglow. Nothing save the bright amber flame of their candles competed with the cosmological lighting just outside the ship. They sat across from each other. Plate full. She told him what it was in a meager voice. “Pancit canton.”

Reyes offered something of a grin. Without a word, he picked up his fork. “Thank you,” he said. She was surprised he didn’t comment further. 

The first thing she thought, as he wrapped the noodles around his fork - careful to net in the stray portents of the meal - was that she had never waited on someone before. “Do you like it?” she asked before he had even tasted it.

“Ha, do _you_?” He was being cheeky of course. What with that lopsided smile, his elbows planted flat on the table. He was always quick to turn things around, make her suddenly conscious of the untouched silverware shining by the plate before her. Sara thought he couldn’t look more relaxed.

He took the first bite. A forkful of noodles coiling around deliciously reddened shrimp and still fragrant with the spices. He chewed quickly and sparingly, drawing breaths through his nose when he could. “It’s good,” he commented plainly.

The timid chef leaned over the table, somewhat flummoxed. “So you like it?”

His eyes widened, acutely aware of the ensuing interrogation. “What? I said it was good!” He hurriedly forked a morsel before and hastily chewed it in a performance of voracity. “It’s really good,” he repeated in between bites. An audible gulp followed before he could further comment. “I like that hint of something… what is it? A citrus?”

“Kalamansi,” she answered curtly. “It’s a type of citrus. Kinda’ like a lime.”

Piqued, he swallowed some more. “Never heard of it.”

“It’s grown… _was_ grown in the Philippines.”

 Reyes nodded his head with attentive fervor. “That’s where you’re from right?”

“No, it’s where my father is… _was_ from. Scott and I grew up on the Citadel.”

The two of them seemed to lose themselves in the silence that hovered. Sara lowered her eyes and twisted her knuckles from underneath the table. She had no idea why she was so nervous. As for Reyes, he was aware he already knew the aforementioned tidbit. That is, a suspecting thought gnawed at him in chiding reminder that he should’ve already known such a facet of her life. “Ah, that’s right,” he said, almost apologetically. His forked moved with an eager pace, renewed with vigor for the rather exotic meal she prepared for him. “Are you going to eat?” 

Sara didn’t answer. She instead smiled with a sigh. Neither a breath of relief nor exasperation, something of a wave of placid content rolled through her muscles. There was indeed something intimate about watching Reyes eat, however unenthusiastically, what she had so carefully put together. “I didn’t have all the ingredients I needed.” Her fingers dithered with her rolled up napkin, creasing it for a satisfying grip in her hand. “So I made do with what SAM thought was a good substitute.”

A chuckle rumbled through his lips. He set his fork down, shaking his head as if slightly done with the somewhat stuffy air hanging low over their otherwise pleasant dinner. “You know it’s perfect.” He nudged his chin forward to be done with it all. “Just eat. I want us to eat together.”

Without a word, Sara obeyed. She pulled her seat up closer to the edge of the table. She wrapped lithe, reluctant fingers around the neck of her cutlery. A slither of noodle shone on one of the throngs. She gulped it in one bite. Somehow, it tasted funny.

* * *

 The sigh of relief folded through her body like a gentle breeze. The heaving of his chest rose in low hums next to the sharp drumming of his heart. She felt so close to him, wrapped in his sweat, in an entanglement of flesh.

“Fuck.” His was the first word. A wide, toothy smile. He rolled away from her body, laying flat as the sweat on his back clung to the sheets. Sara thought he at least seemed happy.

His eyes were still partly closed. The tips of her fingers teetered along the edges of his eye, the crows feet in rows around the waterline, and a small mole just underneath. Reyes didn’t make a move or a sound as he let her play with the mark - one of the many unread details hidden on his face. “Reyes.” His name drew a whisper from her lips. 

In turn, he kept the smile, the somewhat still listless half-part of his eyes. “Sara.” His arm went around her waist, cinching the sheets snug between them.

A hesitant air trembled with her voice. “Did you like tonight?” 

Reyes wanted to laugh. Whatever reason she had for asking such ridiculous questions… “No.” 

Suddenly she went quiet as a mouse. 

“Of course I did!” he quickly recanted. He let out another playful laugh before turning to his side. Their noses grazed against each other in the dark.

“You just didn’t say much about the dinner.”

There was something ridiculous about the inquiry, about how it followed them all the way from the beginnings of their meal to the delicate threshold of a postcoital embrace. “Sara,” he said more sternly. “You know I don’t deal with this nonsense.” There was a hint of a smile, but in the dark she could barely make the lines of it. She could merely feel the pull of his cheek, the tugging of his skin as he mouthed the words.

“I just worry,” she insisted feebly. “If I had all the ingredients… just…” The stammering seemed to scratch through her throat as she fumbled for an excuse. “I just know it’s not as good as it could be.” 

“Enough,” he said with thinned out patience. “What do you want me to say? You’re a terrible cook?” 

Sara nodded, closing her eyes and feeling somewhat ashamed for the suddenly contrived crisis beating against her chest. 

“Well, I won’t, because you’re not. It was perfect. Just the way it was!” Reyes pulled away with the declaration. He almost slammed his body back against the mattress, flattening his spine as he sprawled out his limbs.

She wanted to apologize, to burrow further into his side, warm with arms locked together, threatening to never pull apart lest they dither into the waning hours of a deep sleep. But she didn’t. She merely lay there, a little helpless and a little limp.

Reyes knew better than to take her silence as an adequate conclusion to their discussion. “Thank you,” he managed, a little resentfully. “I haven’t had a home cooked meal in a while, much less one from the Philippines.” The joke worked. They both laughed, caught in their respective places as they were cocooned by the silent folds of her blankets.

“I’ve never actually been there.” Her chatter hummed against the white noise of dimming circuitry around her room. “My mom made Filipino food all the time for dad. She said it was one way you remember home.”

Something about the unintentionally pithy statement made them curl further into each other. Reyes, hooking an arm around his lover, crawled a little closer. “Thank you,” he repeated, softer this time. He topped his gratitude with a light kiss, gently on her upper lip. “Now it’ll always make me think of home.”


End file.
